former iphone users, can we be frank?

[SamXp]

It is true that Android developers have a lot more freedom than iOS devs. The possibilities are really astounding! One struggle Android devs have, though, is designing for dozens of devices and their relevant drivers. A lot easier to develop for iOS in that respect.

 

[bbrosen]

I share your frustration with Apple products. I got my wife an iPod a few years ago. Then one day, she wanted to charge it, but her PC was off. I told her to just plug it into mine (which does not have iTunes). Well, it seemed that it screwed up the iPod and I ended up having to do a hard reset. It had a few problems where her PC doesn't seem to recognise her iPod for some reason. It seems to be working now, but it is still flaky sometimes. I'm just surprised you need to have a PC with iTunes in it just to charge the iPod. It just doesn't make sense to me.

you dont need a pc with itunes, any pc with a usb port even without itunes can charge an ipod, iphone. You can also use a wall charger to usb to charge with out a pc. I also have a usb port on my battery back up in my house that can be used as well as a usb port on my truck stereo. chargeing was never an issue and neither was itunes, worked flawlessly everytime. i still use itunes with my samsung galaxy s useing itunes agent.

 

[Shocky]

Why?

No idea, the Galaxy S series are great phones and have been hugely successful, probably the main reason Samsung have overtaken HTC as largest share of Android based devices on the market and that;s only going to increase with the Galaxy S2.

HTC do make some nice phones though, just never been good enough for me to choose one over the competition.

 

[novox77]

Personally I think that only applies to games. IOS does seem have a better supply of games...

Apps I do believe that Android blows away IOS. When I think of apps I don't just compare base apps (say Apples facebook app with Androids). I look at all the apps in general. Android marketplace lets us have apps that Apple would never allow. Add alternative markets and sideloading and we can pretty much have anything we can dream up.

Plus we can have better functioning apps. A perfect example of this is a GPS app. Apple only allows the app to have the GPS co-ordinates. An android GPS app could tell me how many satellites it sees, where they are in the sky, what signal strength they have, etc etc... I am sure there are plenty of other examples of where Apple gives basic info, whereas Android lets you have detailed info.

Android gives developers much better tools and freedoms to create much better apps. And that makes Android Apps better.

Great points. In another thread, an apple user was asking if the Android Market had emulators, if Google would remove them as they popped up, and if you needed to jailbreak/root to run them. Man, these poor prisoners of Apple's garden. Restriction after restriction.

There's also a class of apps in Android that doesn't exist in the App Store. I call them "profile" apps. Basically you schedule your phone to behave differently based on time of day, your location, etc. That way you can silence your phone, change volume as you're in different places (school, work, commute, etc). None of this is possible with an iOS device.

My wife really needs this because her work requires her to silence her phone. Then she doesn't remember to turn on her ringer, so when I try to call her, she always misses my calls.

Yeah, I think the last advantage of the Apple store are the games. And even then, there's not a lot of games I'd dying to play. That might change when Sony gets involved with Android. Then the "real" games will arrive, and they'll require the good hardware to play them.

 

[southrncomfort]

It's a really bad time to make a leap because there is a lot waiting to be shown next month for android, and Apple hasnt yet shown iPhone5 which is the 800lbs that can rock Androids world in the USA if it drops on Verizon and AT&T at the same time

I am eligible for upgrade in July.
I am waiting it out rather then paying more for a phone...
Between now and then Im doing lots of reading in forums such as this so that I can make an intelligent decision.

 

[Stuntman]

you dont need a pc with itunes, any pc with a usb port even without itunes can charge an ipod, iphone. You can also use a wall charger to usb to charge with out a pc. I also have a usb port on my battery back up in my house that can be used as well as a usb port on my truck stereo. chargeing was never an issue and neither was itunes, worked flawlessly everytime. i still use itunes with my samsung galaxy s useing itunes agent.

Well for whatever reason, when I plugged my wife's iPod into my PC that does not have iTunes, the iPod froze. We haven't tried charging her iPod with my PC since.

 

[Lord Doom]

Great points. In another thread, an apple user was asking if the Android Market had emulators, if Google would remove them as they popped up, and if you needed to jailbreak/root to run them. Man, these poor prisoners of Apple's garden. Restriction after restriction.

This.

Every time I speak to an iPhone user, It's like they've never had a proper smart phone before. When I show them my Android, my first response from them is "What is Android?" followed by "Omg, it can do that?! Well I have a pretty screen, it's retina!"

Feel sorry for them really. Don't get me wrong, I know there are happy iPhone users out there, but come on..Compared to the freedom of Android, there is no comparison here.

 

[WombatMan]

I used to be an iPhone user myself, and made the switch to Android. The one thing I'll give iPhone over Android is the UI, but that's about it. The user experience on my Motorola Droid has never been as responsive and smooth as my iPhone was. It's perfectly functional with no major problems, but it just doesn't have that same smoothness. I notice it more now when I want to try something on my old iPhone and play with it for a while.

That being said, I prefer almost every other aspect of my Android phone over the iPhone. I also hated iTunes with a passion, so I'm happy to not have it installed anymore. I like how customizable it is, and there haven't been any apps that I had on my iPhone that I couldn't find an Android equivalent. But I'd say one of my favorite things about the Android platform, and this might be sad, is the menu button. When I do go back to my iPhone, it drives me nuts because I can't find the settings on certain apps. On Android, just hit the menu button, it always "just works".

It's definitely different, but I prefer it.

 

[NatesMom]

As a former iPhone 3GS user, I can empathize with most of the posts here.

It would gall me how Apple (and their fanboys/girls mind you; not users) would trumpet the whole Flash sucks, blah blah mantra, yet their POS bloatware iTunes performs more poorly, while doing less (oh, and did I mention Quicktime?). Yes, it's fine at music management but it is very inefficient trying to anything beyond that. And as soon as it's removed from the Apple walled garden, it doesn't play nice (like all Apple products, which is why iOS will never be licensed like Windows). Bonjour running in the background even when you don't have iTunes scanning for other devices??? On Windows, if you disable that service, iTunes croaks! I could go on with how many times iTunes hung up my laptop.

Personally I think that only applies to games. IOS does seem have a better supply of games...

This is true. The pickings are slim, especially educational games geared for young kids. So currently Apple has the advantage of having the content market that is tailored for children. I hope the Android Market starts to grow in that department . It frustrates me to think that our next generation of kids are going to grow up having the Apple logo in their brain subconsciously.

 

[Stuntman]

It would gall me how Apple (and their fanboys/girls mind you; not users) would trumpet the whole Flash sucks, blah blah mantra, yet their POS bloatware iTunes performs more poorly, while doing less (oh, and did I mention Quicktime?).

I have heard that some opinions about Apple's stance on Flash has more to do with the large number of free Flash games out there than stability of Flash. Before the iPhone, you could play so many free games with Flash. If Apple made Flash available, users may choose to play these free games instead of paying for an app which Apple gets 30%.

 

[novox77]

The pickings are slim, especially educational games geared for young kids. So currently Apple has the advantage of having the content market that is tailored for children. I hope the Android Market starts to grow in that department . It frustrates me to think that our next generation of kids are going to grow up having the Apple logo in their brain subconsciously.

Actually, I grew up in the 80s, where Apple pretty much had a monopoly in education. Most computers in schools were Apple computers. I remember thinking how fancy they were with their disk drives and their mice, compared to my TRS-80 at home.

Then I got a 386 SX in 1989, and I never cared much for Apple computers after that.

Lots of parallels between my 386 / Mac and my Android / iOS. The Mac definitely had the cool GUI, but my PC had DOS, and that's where my love of the command-line blossomed. So much control over the computer. Later, in college, our computer network was all unix-based, and that gave me all the background skills to handle the linux on our Android phones.

Yep, no ill effects here growing up with Apple in schools

 

[uzetaab]

I just want to say that while I agree that itunes can be painful to use, you may find you miss it when it's gone. I've been an android switcher for nearly a year now, and I still miss itunes.

The main thing I miss about it is that it did a fantastic job of organising my podcasts. I've grown used to Google Listen, but it still doesn't even come close to itunes. Although I do like that I don't need a PC to get podcasts automatically now.

Also, audible.com integration was pretty good on itunes, I never got confused about what book I should listen to next.

Plus, as others have said, music management. If you like to manage your music folders yourself, then itunes sucks, but if you let itunes do it for you, it works pretty well.

So, do I miss itunes enough to switch back? Hell no! For me, the advantages of android outweigh the advantages of ios and/or itunes.

 

[Outlaw71]

Androids are tied to Google the way iPads are tied to iTunes.
Wait until you try to use email or some service that should "just work."

I'm sorry I'm a little late to this party, but I've always been a bit miffed at how badly people think the Gmail part of Android is. I don't find it offensive at all. But my life also doesn't revolve around email so maybe I'm missing something?

Yes when you get an Android device it asks you to set it up on a gmail account. Why? Because they store all of your basic settings in the google cloud via your gmail account. This is really the only tie to the gmail account though. When I got my Droid I didn't have a gmail account, so I made one using my aol account but with @gmail.com on the end instead of @aol.com naturally. This way if I lose or break my phone and they replace it with a new one, I put my gmail account in and it sets my phone up the way I had it set up before (basically. It's not perfect by any means, but then again I guess some people would complain even more if it was TOO thorough).

So it's more or less a back-up feature. After you put a gmail account into the phone you can add any other email account you want to. I added my aol account and it's worked flawlessly ever since. Not as instant as it did on my Blackberry, but then nothing else does it as fast as Blackberry either. And so far as I can tell nothing else I do on my phone is tied to my gmail account. I set up my facebook on my aol account just like it was originally. I switch music over to my phone either through my computer or via MusicJunk (awesome app... such a shame they 86t it). My photo's get uploaded on PhotoBucket. And my texts go through GoSMS.

So please... anyone, tell me how does gmail cripple my phone?

 

[freedom1911]

Oh yeah, go HTC. Never Samsung.

Please do your homework on the Motorola phones.
I stopped buying Moto phones because of poor quality. They build phones with issues, find out about those issues and continue to sell their crapware.
Some years back I bought a Moto phone from Att thinking I was getting a good product.
After all it is a Motorola, right? Turns out they don't make anything in the US any more and their quality control is in the toilet.
I had so many dropped calls in the first few weeks. I called Att and complained, the guy told me that "you didn't here this from me" which is how it always starts "but this phone has a know antenna issue that Motorola has already said they are not going to fix" With which I blew up cause I just paid over 300.00 for the POS.
HTC is a good brand, and in my experience LG is also very good.
But do your home work before you plop that money down.
As for Samsung, on smart phones, they have lost me. I bought the Intercept, 250.00 brick. Useless as a smart phone, to many people have big problems with that phone and it looks like there is another Samsung droid phone that is shipped with instructions on brick laying as the buyer quickly finds out their phones are only good for that.

 

[krouget]

I used to be an iPhone user myself, and made the switch to Android. The one thing I'll give iPhone over Android is the UI, but that's about it.

To be honest, I even question this when using iOS. I actually feel that Springboard has gotten terribly stale, and overburdened by the double-edged sword that is the single button. While it keeps things simple, far too many functions are tied to the button, which leaves me scratching my head, asking "why", when you get more function and utility from unobtrusive dedicated buttons, found on Android.

Aspects like the "wiggle mode" are not intuitive for folder creation, for example, and no pinch-preview (such as sense UI), to quickly cover the wall of apps, make scrolling through 100+ apps tedious. Add to the fact that spotlight has its own home screen, it lacks widgets, an assortment of shortcuts, and good notification system, and it really leaves me questioning why some of these things are so easily overlooked, when they can be better handled.

A dedicated search button with global voice search/command, combined with more intuitive long-presses (right-click), or a simple press of the menu button to save us the screen space, seems better thought out, given the growing complexity of our phones and apps. Also, the simple function of the back button does wonders for navigation.

The smoothness and screen transitions are certainly nice, but while it has its share of strong points, I see a lot of issues with basic home screen functions, found in Springboard.

 

[NatesMom]

I have heard that some opinions about Apple's stance on Flash has more to do with the large number of free Flash games out there than stability of Flash. Before the iPhone, you could play so many free games with Flash. If Apple made Flash available, users may choose to play these free games instead of paying for an app which Apple gets 30%.

I agree there is more to Apple's hyperventilating about Flash. I'm sure it's coming more from a strategic/money perspective vs. a purely technical one. Remember Apple is a hardware company first so anything that drives the user to remain in their locked in environment speaks profits for the company.

It's also a perception game that they're playing. They don't want Flash because they tout they want things to 'just work' in their environment. Well it bloody well should---they control every aspect of it! Adobe came out and said they were perfectly willing to work with Apple to get Flash working on iOS. By allowing that though, Apple risked exposing their 'magical' devices has having comparable if not sub-par hardware and all the marketing mystique would be gone (what they're just like Android or heaven forbid--Windows devices??!!). No, I don't think that sat well with Steve Jobs.

The more I read about Apple, the more I admire the Android platform, considering the many cooks that are in the kitchen before the final product is served.

 

[NatesMom]

@novox77

Yes I do recall Apple has the corner of the market with educational facilities. But then again, that was also Wozniak's Apple as well. Unfortunately, I think any traces of his legacy have been slowly if not entirely 'retired' from the current company.

Lucky for you, you were not affected by your exposure to Apple. You were also probably in high school, no? Nowadays, children very early on are exposed to devices we never had access to at that age. During the pre-school years (and even before that) is when their brains are going through maximum development and often the things they are exposed to at this age is what is retained in the long term.

I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if a child subconsciously associates the Apple logo later in life as familiar as say, a photo of Elmo or some other character they've grown up with. Especially if it's associated with pleasant memories---like playing games and having fun. Potential future consumers, right there! And no, i"m not wearing a tin-foil hat!

 

[Outlaw71]

I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if a child subconsciously associates the Apple logo later in life as familiar as say, a photo of Elmo or some other character they've grown up with. Especially if it's associated with pleasant memories---like playing games and having fun. Potential future consumers, right there! And no, i"m not wearing a tin-foil hat!

That could also be a double edged sword though. A lot of kids, when they grow up, they want to disassociate themselves with the things they grew up with when there were younger as they feel ready to move on to more 'mature' things.

Take my son for example, when he was a kid he LOVED Pokemon... the cartoon, the games, the cards, all of it. But once he turned 13 or so he sold all of it away and barely even likes to admit he ever liked it. If I talk about it infront of his friends he almost seems embarrassed.

Because he doesn't want to be viewed as a kid anymore. He wants people to look at him as a young man.

 

[novox77]

I was 5 when I had my TRS-80. A few years later, I was introduced to the Apple ][e at elementary school. 2nd grade. By high school, they had Macs in the computer labs, where I learned a flavor of Apple BASIC. But by that time, I already owned a PC (my 386) and was starting to see the bigger picture.

Even back then, Apple's claim was ease of use and less crashes. From firsthand experience, I concluded they were full of it. In the lab, I constantly got the "Sorry, a system error has occurred" window with a bomb on it. Only option was to restart.

I hated how I needed to use a paper clip to eject my 3.5" floppies at times. There was no eject button for the drive. You did it by software, and if the software wasn't causing the eject, you had to go find a paper clip.

I hated the tiny screen on the Mac. There was no concept of an external monitor. Even my crappy VGA (640x480) CRT monitor that came with my 386 was better than the Mac's display. Later I upgraded my CRT to an SVGA and wondered why Apple didn't keep the monitor external.

Despite the early exposure, I just got turned off by the Apple philosophy as I learned more about what was out there. I like to think I'm a free thinker and not so easily indoctrinated by a brand.

 

[icerado]

don't listen to anyone who says android doesn't have enough apps or games...considering most of those people don't know what is was like when the market had 10 games...I do

Android just has different selection, I would bet any game your kids actually want to play is on the market...and then some they never got to see on your iphone

I vote for the Atrix

 

[dan55]

......but then i am about to get an ipad!

 

[Vehtemas]

I guess I am a bit confused, the AT&T Rep told you that Android didn't flow as well as iTunes?

Does he not know you can drag and drop if you want? That google contacts are synced (push wise) the MINUTE you make a change? That the calendar is synced the MINUTE a change is recognized, that Google tasks and picasa are synced right to their respective programs (if you want them used that is)?

I don't know about anyone else, but from someone who has used iTunes for years, I hate that little POS and will never use it again.

My sister was about to get an iPhone, until I told her she had to use iTunes... Guess what she did? Got the Droid X.

 

[HER0]

I have to agree about apps. I am an iPhone 4 user and a Desire HD user. My last Android before this DHD was the Hero on Android 1.6. Apps and games were presented poorly back on 1.6, and to my surprise they still are for the most part which I'm really disappointed about. Even when the functionality is there, if the app looks plain ugly it does spoil the experience for me.

This is really frustrating because out of the box, I prefer the DHD. The ability to drag and drop, email/download whatever I want, customise, delete photos without having to sync, etc. are so liberating after using iOS, but for me the apps just don't cut it yet.

 

[Guamguy]

The hardest part for iPhone users (or any other mobile OS user) transitioning to Android is the understanding that Android has very different internal concepts than iOS despite the UI and icons thing.

1. The first thing to understand is that Android apps are modular. They basically consist of an Activity, which is the part of the app that the user interfaces with, and the Services, which runs on the back. Even if the Activity is closed or not run, the Service can continue to run on the background providing for updates and services to other Android apps as well. That's why you don't use task killers. Most of the time you see app Services, not Activities, and when you kill those services, you're not doing yourself and the phone a favor. Services are also the ones responsible for adding additional sync services to the OS, all done without an OS upgrade.

2. The second is that there are kinds of apps in Android that don't exist in iOS, though some may exist also in the Symbian and Windows Mobile worlds. These are:

a. Widgets
b. Live Wallpapers
c. Profile apps
d. Lockscreen apps
e. UI shell apps
f. Task managers
g. keyboard apps (Swype, Swiftkey)
h. Services (Adobe Flash, AIR)
I. Voice action apps
J. Gesture action apps
K. Plugins

3. The third is the capability of Android apps are quite different. Using Services, Activity and View classes, an Android app can have a Widget component that can be displayed separately from the main app. Services allow apps to share information from one app to another. That's why you can send tweets from Twitter for Android to Evernote, or send any picture from the Gallery to Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, etc,. The third capability is that Android apps can be set for background periodic polling even without the main app (Activity) is launched. Again, this is done by the Services.

4. That there are two ways Android apps are constructed. With the SDK, its written in Java, is managed code, and run within the Dalvik VM. With the NDK, it is written in C languages, run as a native, unmanaged code, and outside of the Dalvik VM. The third is usually a hybrid of the two.
Most apps are run as Dalvik, but some apps, usually games and some browsers like Opera Mobile and Firefox, are run as native or as hybrids. By far, Dalvik apps are not affected by the use of different processors on Android phones, but native apps have the potential to be more sensitive with regards to the different chipsets. Again, fragmentation is overrated for most apps but it can be a real reason for some apps that decided to go native.

5. The fifth is that Android apps, at least those that written for Android 1.6 and above, are designed to natively scale. Android apps are not written to fix hardware coordinates (X = 320, Y= 240), but on reference points (X = Xa, Y= Ya). if an Android app is run on a tablet, it won't create a huge black border like an iPhone app on an iPad. Rather, it would scale up to occupy the entire space. While the display is suboptimal, it is better than leaving a huge black border. Some apps cannot go down to QVGA resolutions however. Resolution and density declarations can be made within the app, and the Android Market can selectively filter out devices based on those declarations. Note. Its harder to scale down than to scale up. Native scaling is one particular reason why "fragmentation" on display resolutions is an overblown issue but one should be aware with low end QVGA devices but less of a concern with superphones and tablets.

6. The next is the Security permissions of Android apps. Note when you install an app, it will list down what it can do. Its more than a contract to the user, if the OS detects the app doing something beyond what is declared in doing, it will be terminated and gets reported. An app doing something beyond its stated declared permissions is a good way to get removed from the Android Market and even remotely deleted from handsets by Google. If an app is unknown and the list includes things you are not comfortable with, or out of character with the app's purpose, you don't have to install it. Usually the Dalvik VM creates a protective sandbox around the app.

 

[Hesynergy]

read my experiences below...I'm in the same boat, but I got an Atrix/Lapdock for testing

see my post and this link to pros and cons of the Atrix on Google docs

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0At6UbGbeHXMxdHNUVUZEUGtqVmhNMlNRdkFlOFJ4bmc&hl=en

hope this helps...

Chas